MPs should hear what headteachers have to say – not just for students but for their own sake too

Ministers may be busy, but not half as busy as a teaching assistant in an over-full classroom with unruly children

Rarely can a pressure group have had a more baleful, almost passive-aggressive title as “WorthLess”.

That headteachers, naturally not the most militant of groups, should feel it necessary to campaign for funding for the very basics they need in their schools is a damning indictment of the way the education system has been run. It seems that there is a funding crisis.

Yet it is curious. The bald figures analysed by the independent Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) suggest that in recent decades funding for education has been exceptionally generous by historical standards – a fine investment in the nation’s future.

Under the Blair government, we had a public commitment to “education, education, education” as a national priority, including a massive expansion in nursery provision. Even under the coalition government, schools spending (though not other areas) was specifically “ringfenced”. Innovations such as the pupil premium were generally welcomed, and played some part in making the spending go further to reduce inequality of opportunity.

But still the headteachers protest. It may well be that some of the extra funding that has gone into education has been in areas other than primary and secondary schools – such as those preschool facilities – and that some of it will have gone into capital investment. The numbers of pupils also rise and fall, affecting, to a degree, the effectiveness of any given £1bn of budget.

What is also equally clear, and rather more apposite, is that the IFS agrees that spending per pupil is falling and will continue to fall. That’s despite the extra resources recently promised by the chancellor – the now derided money for “the little extras”. More controversially, some claim that free schools and grammar schools have enjoyed disproportionately generous awards.

No one, though, doubts the multifaceted crisis that many headteachers face. In recent years they have become accustomed to dealing with this, a tribute in itself to their leadership and the resilience of all teaching and auxiliary staff. They are faced with the ever-increasing demands of parents, the intense competition spurred by league tables, and the problems of retaining staff and public services in areas of high rents and house prices.

Now they are facing accusations that they have somehow failed the nation because of the escalation of fatal knife attacks. It is true that excluded pupils are more likely to be found carrying a blade, or using it; but the cause and effect is not immediately clear. The problems of troubled pupils start in the home, and if they are found with a knife in school, they are likely to be disciplined or excluded.

The fault lies much more in the decline of youth services dedicated to community work, cuts in community policing, and the lack of suitable destinations for pupils who become unteachable in conventional institutions. Schools are not an alternative to secure accommodation for violent adolescents.

The broad picture, then, is clear – but there is much useful discussion to be had about how to make the best of the billions spent by the state and local authorities on education and youth services. It might be thought that the relatively inexperienced education secretary Damian Hinds, and even his veteran schools minister Nick Gibb, would want to hear what the WorthLess group have to say.

It seems not. Ministers plead their packed diaries as justification for refusing to hear at first hand the travails of dedicated teachers. It’s true that Brexit has blanked out virtually everything else in public life. But while the machinery of government grinds on, the kids are still turning up to learn their maths, and the teachers are still finding life ever more stressful.

Ministers may be busy, but not half as busy as a teaching assistant in an over-full classroom with unruly children. They should find them a spare hour. It is not so much to ask. Come the next general election, Mr Hinds and his colleagues will regret that they failed to listen to people who form such an influential group, with ready access to worried parents – all of whom just happen to have a vote.